RED One Purchasing

So I have an associate that it getting ready to film a feature length film and it trying to decide which camera to shoot the feature with. I obviously out of personal desire suggested that, if he was going to invest in his own equipment, to invest in a Red One package. One thing that people don't understand is that its not as easy as a $17,500 purchase because its not like buying a HVX200 or another pro-sumer camera. The Red One is a serious piece of professional equipment that is aimed at the profession cinema and commercial markets.

Yes the Red One is comparably cheap compared to other digital cinema cameras, but what people don't understand is it takes a lot of money to get a Red One working well. Some things people don't think of when they consider a Red One purchase are:

+ Rails
+ Follow Focus
+ Matte Box
+ Support
+ Post Production needs
+ Storage
+ Backup and Redundancy.

So over the last few months I've been trying to come up with a cost effective, yet production worthy Red One Package for my own use, and it come in two flavors, budget indie favorable, and regular indie favorable. Bottom line is it'll cost a filmmaker $50,000+ to get a good Red One setup. So here's my suggestion on a Budget Indie Red One Rig:

+ Red One Body - $17,500
+ Compact Flash Module - $500 (*A must for purchase)
+ Base Production Pack - $1,250
+ 5" LCD - $1,700
+ (2) Power Packs with 2 Chargers, 4 Batteries - $2,900
+ (2) Red Drive - $1,800
+ Nikon Mount - $500
+ Pelican 1620 - $190
+ Nikon Lens Set From RPLens.com (link) - $3500
+ Miller Arrow 55 Tripod and Head - $5,450 (* Weight of the camera needs a good head)
+ Lexar Compact Flash Card Reader - $75
+ Red Rock Micro Matte Box Red Bundle - $795
+ Tiffen DV Essentials Filter Kit - $440
+ Red Rock Micro Follow Focus - $795
+ Apple Mac Pro - $4,200 (*For editing and rendering)
+ Apple Mac Book Pro - $3,000 (* For Field off loads and backups)
+ Silverado Systems Field Master (Link) - $12,499.00
- G-Speed ES 4TB Raid (* For Data Storage)
- Sonnet Tempo eSata Card (* For Field Off Loads)
- Quantum LTO-3A Tape Drive (* For Data Archival)
+ Sonnet 640GB Fusion F2 - $800 (* For Field Off Loads)

So total price of this rig, which will be one stop shopping for production and editorial would be $57,854. Now you don't NEED all of this, but if its your intention to have everything you need to get started with a rig, this is a baseline of what I'd consider a full rig. Now its on the budget side since you don't have top end supports, matte boxes and follow focuses which can easily tack on thousands more per item.

You might be asking, "why do I need all this stuff?" Well here's an attempt at justifying things:

- Camera body is a must, everyone knows that.
- Compact Flash module is a must since Red won't sell a camera without one (it needed for firmware updates).
- Base Production Pack is a quick way to get handles, mounts, battery plates and rods for the Red One. Other options include items from Element Technica and other 3rd Party vendors.
- 5" LCD is lightweight and bright, but other options are Carrion LCDs but the difference in weight it a big deal when your skimping on a fluid head.
- Power packs, you need power, and you need redundancy. You don't NEED two charging units, but at minimum its advised to have at least 4 batteries for a day's worth of work and a unit to charge with.
- Red Drives, granted the Compact Flash option is great, but limits you to a few minutes of 4K footage per take. So a Red Drive gives you a lot more continuous minutes of footage for long takes. The reason for 2, redundancy on set.
- Nikon Mount is a must if you are looking to limit your budget with lenses. Granted you already have the PL mount and can rent cine lenses for a shoot, but you can own a set of lenses for half the cost of one PL lens from Red.
- Pelican 1620, a must. You're not going to store your $18,000 camera in a bag are you?
- Nikon lenses from PRLens.com is a good way to get a color matched, iris adjusted and focus pitched lenses in a set for half the price of one PL lens from Red. Will it be as good as Cine glass? No, but will it still be stunning, YES.
- Miller Arrow 55 tripod and head is one of the cheapest ways to go for a support system for the Red One. A Red One rig can get upwards to 35+ lbs. and you need a head and legs to support that weight without making camera moves look jerky and horrible. Other heads go for thousands more and do a better job, but this is the entry level!
- Lexar Compact Flash Card Reader - Good fast reader a must for CF recording.
- Red Rock Micro Matte Box is a good thing to have but its not a must. Since the camera is a cinema camera, you don't have build in ND filters so you need a filter holder. The Red Rock is the cheapest way to go for 19mm matte box that has plenty of filter holders. You can rent an Arri MB-20 for cheap at a daily rate also.
- Tiffen DV Essentials Filter Kit is a good cheap 4x4 intro set, but probably not up to the standards of DPs and Cinematographers who are professional based. Red Rock is also going to release a set of filters at a competitive price. This has a polarizer, ND and a UV.
- Red Rock Micro Follow Focus, again is another thing you can rent, but having a cheap Follow Focus on hand is always a good idea, and a follow focus is a MUST for a cinema camera. The Red doesn't have auto focus like an HVX.
- Apple Mac Pro with 8 cores is a must. If you plan on editing your 4K footage or 2K renders, you need a heft machine with tons of memory. Your old Mac isn't going to cut it, so invest in the latest and get it going. You'll also need Final Cut Pro and to ease things you might want to add a $3000 AJA Kona card to speed rendering.
- Apple Mac Book Pro is also a must for looking at footage on set, checking exposure and verifying the data coming off the drives. It also runs the backup drives and allows backing up on set to LTO and RAID.
- Silverado Systems Field Master is everything you need to store and backup Red 4K files on set with eSATA connections. It also includes LTO for archiving to 400GB tape drives and a 4TB RAID drive for keeping files. All of this in a Pelican case for easy and secure travel to and from set. A solution that is needed for any production. 4K files take up space and since it is digital, you don't want to lose your project to a hard drive failure.
- Sonnet 640GB Fusion F2 is another smaller drive for fast offloading on set. They can be RAIDed for redundancy and data security on set. Not totally needed, but good for having on set without taking along your master 4TB drives and risking your project.